Dracula is well-covered in the secondary literature. However, a few notes to take:
1) Traditional vampires, more than other monsters, follow very specific rules that drive thriller-style stories. They fear sunlight; Christian iconography threatens them; they sleep during the day (in coffins filled with soil from the homeland). Etc. This makes them a monster that is less fully symbolic and archetypal and more like problems that adventurers have to overcome with resourcefulness. This means that, perhaps, less traditional vampires are ironically the more archetypal. Cf. Anne Rice and her brooding monsters monsters.
2) The horror and magic around Dracula derive very much from the superstitious miasma of Bram Stoker's Eastern Europe. His preternatural strength, his way with wolves, his lizard-like way of climbing castle walls--these all suggest his monstrous nature, but so do the crucifixes and prayers and strange language of the peasants. Dracula's setting layers his character as much as do the actions of Dracula himself.
"It seems to me that the further east you go, the more unpunctual are the trains." - 2
"She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her breast offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous." - 4
"I must say, they were not cheering to me, for among [the words I translated] were "Ordog" -- Satan -- "pokol" -- Hell -- "stregoica" -- witch...Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions." - 5
" 'Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!' " - 13
" 'We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.' " - 17
"I saw [the Count's] fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall." - 29
"I determined not to return to-night to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars." - 31
"I thought [the Count] might have the keys on him, but when I went to search, I saw the dead eyes and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate...that I fled from the place." - 41
"This was the being I was helping to transger to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create an ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless." - 44
1) Traditional vampires, more than other monsters, follow very specific rules that drive thriller-style stories. They fear sunlight; Christian iconography threatens them; they sleep during the day (in coffins filled with soil from the homeland). Etc. This makes them a monster that is less fully symbolic and archetypal and more like problems that adventurers have to overcome with resourcefulness. This means that, perhaps, less traditional vampires are ironically the more archetypal. Cf. Anne Rice and her brooding monsters monsters.
2) The horror and magic around Dracula derive very much from the superstitious miasma of Bram Stoker's Eastern Europe. His preternatural strength, his way with wolves, his lizard-like way of climbing castle walls--these all suggest his monstrous nature, but so do the crucifixes and prayers and strange language of the peasants. Dracula's setting layers his character as much as do the actions of Dracula himself.
"It seems to me that the further east you go, the more unpunctual are the trains." - 2
"She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her breast offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous." - 4
"I must say, they were not cheering to me, for among [the words I translated] were "Ordog" -- Satan -- "pokol" -- Hell -- "stregoica" -- witch...Mem., I must ask the Count about these superstitions." - 5
" 'Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!' " - 13
" 'We are in Transylvania, and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things.' " - 17
"I saw [the Count's] fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall." - 29
"I determined not to return to-night to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars." - 31
"I thought [the Count] might have the keys on him, but when I went to search, I saw the dead eyes and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate...that I fled from the place." - 41
"This was the being I was helping to transger to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create an ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless." - 44